This application relates to wireless communications, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for adjusting an airtime quota of User Equipment to improve quality of service (QoS).
The IEEE 802.11 standard has been widely applied in wireless communications applications in wireless local area network (WLAN). In an 802.11 wireless network, the physical transmission rate has a very large variation, which not only depends on distance from a client to an access point (AP), but also depends on the 802.11 standard modes. The physical rate range specified by 802.11b is from 1 Mbps (Megabits per second) to 11 Mbps, and the physical rate range specified by 802.11n is from 6.5 Mbps to 600 Mbps. A problem of “airtime unfairness” exists in conventional WLAN products. When there are several good quality links (e.g. near end users) and bad quality links (e.g. far end users) in the same WLAN, the bad quality links are assigned with less airtime due to the competitive mechanism of 802.11. Hence, the bad quality links may not have sufficient airtime for packet transmission, thus deteriorating user experience.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and apparatus for adjusting airtime quota of User Equipment to improve quality of service (QoS).